In this two-stage empirical research, the authors attempted to study the impact of promoting translation sub-competences defined by PACTE's Multi-Componential Model for Translation Competence on the promotion of total translation competence as the first stage. The experiment for this purpose was conducted on a group of Iranian undergraduate students comprising of their exposure to a targeted syllabus for one semester. A pre-test and post-test of the experiment assessed their level and progress regarding translation competence, using Orozco's measuring instruments and Farahzad and Famil Khalili's TQA scale. The first stage also investigated whether Orozco’s model could assess sub-competences separately. The second stage investigated whether translation sub-competences played equal roles within the translation competence, in order to establish a ranking of influence among them. Thus, the study contrasted the instrumental results of the tests to the total scores through the TQA scale and calculated the correlation between them. The analyses revealed that the growth in each translation sub-competence promoted the total translation competence. However, the study found Orozco’s model unable to assess translation sub-competences separately. Finally, the study found that Orozco's measuring instruments and Farahzad and Famil Khalili's TQA scale employed for this experiment were unable to collect sufficient evidential data as to measure the separate role or influence of each sub-competence in the construction of total translation competence. Manuscript profile